Anyway, about the concert. Dave Stewart was her special guest, I guess no-one really knew any of his new stuff, as the audience was pretty stiff during his performance. When the band did some Eurythmics tracks (Here Comes the Rain again, Missionary Man…), it just didn’t feel the same without Annie Lennox.

An annoucement before Stevie came on stage asked the audience not to take photos or videos of the performance (ala Bjork). But really, no – I want a momento. Sorry Stevie.

Stevie Nicks appeared right on schedule at 9pm. She was actually much better vocally than I thought she was going to be. The concert went for two hours, which I consider very good value nowadays (Janet didn’t even last an hour and a half). Stevie told us from the start that it was NOT a “greatest hits” show and she was going to play her new stuff (whether you wanted to hear it or not). I can appreciate that she would want to plug her new album, after all, she said she worked really hard on it and was immensely proud of it. Luckily, I had acquired the new album a couple of weeks ago to familiarise myself with In Your Dreams. My favourite tracks of the night were Stand Back (the opening track), Dreams, Rhiannon, Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream), Landslide & Edge of Seventeen. You can see the entire tracklist here. I enjoyed her anecdotes from her career and explanations of her new songs. She kept making jokes about being “old” – good to see a diva who can joke about herself. I was concerned when she needed a helper guy to make sure she didn’t fall over when she wanted to bend down and shake the audience’s hand during the finale. I also saw on Facebook, that PAdam got to touch her hand! Overall, a pretty awesome concert! As Tricky Dicky Wilkins said at the Arias, she is the queen of rock n roll!

Dave Stewart

Stevie Nicks

PS. It wasn’t as good as George Michael, I mean holy shit, he performed a concert for 40,000 people!!!

I’ve been meaning to write this review for a while. What can I say? George Michael totally lived up to expectations. The concert was advertised to start at 7:30pm – very early for a Friday night with typical Sydney peak hour traffic. Even George was held up by the traffic getting to the Sydney Football Stadium. Times like this I’m glad I live in walking distance of Moore Park. I sat with my dear friend from school Matt and his party posse. George performed with his band and back up singers for 2 hours (with a 20 minute intermission featuring a countdown shot clock on the big screen). He did every song I wanted to hear: I’m Your Man, Faith, Careless Whisper, Too Funky, One More Try, Father Figure, Fastlove, Amazing and the finale Freedom 90. So glad he didn’t do Wake Me Up Before you Go Go – I’m sure he is as over that song as I am. He looked pretty happy to be there and his devoted crowd were loving him back, singing along to every song. I was 100% satisfied at the end of the concert – it was worth every cent. I like George so much I was willing to pay more to be closer to the front – I think tickets went up to $1000 but no-one I knew was insane enough to spend that much money on him. I heard that he has been having an extended holiday in Sydney – so maybe I will still see him walking down the street. Sure he’s a bit older and little bit tubbier, but he can still sing and dance – just like the good old days Great concert – 5 stars!

I have been a long time fan of Aimee Mann, so when her first ever tour of Australia was announced, I had to be there. You may be familiar with the film Magnolia, in which Aimee Mann contributed much of the soundtrack. Dave doesn’t really get into my favourite female singer/songwriters much, so I went with my Aunty instead.
Aimee was supported by Ben Lee. I like him. I’m not ashamed. Most people I know hate him but I think he writes some cool songs. Anyway, it was great to see him live for the first time as well. You can also download for free some of his Noise Addict stuff if you like.
When Aimee Mann came on stage there was rapturous applause (I guess some of these people had waited more than 10 years to see her). She writes great, deep & meaningful, sometimes witty and sarcastic lyrics, see Wise Up. Her voice is fantastic too. My aunty said, “very pure”. I knew the majority of the songs she sang, and I bought her latest album, @#%&*! Smilers at the show. My favourite songs that she sang were: Wise Up, Save Me, Red Vines, Thirty One Today and her one big hit from the 80s when she was in Til Tuesday, Voices Carry.

On Saturday night, I finally got to see the ego himself Kanye West in concert. I have been a fan of his production work for Jay-Z, John Legend, Alicia Keys etc etc as well as his solo releases. He has great showmanship and style. He’s performed in Australia quite a few times, there was the one at the Sydney Opera House with the symphony, Good Vibrations etc but when the Glow in the Dark tour of Australia was announced, I decided Kanye was going to happen for me finally. I bought a ticket for my bro for Xmas, Honka Princess and Dave (with paintball injuries) came along too.
Unfortunately, we missed Scribe, I had seen him before supporting the Beastie Boys. Next up was Nas (it was his first time in Oz, there seemed like a lot of people who were there for him). He did a really great set with some crazy backing musicians especially the guitarists. I couldn’t work out if they were male or female. Nas reminds me of Jay-Z a bit.
Then it was time for the big man, I noticed there was no hype/MC action which you usually get at hip-hop gigs, he just suddenly appeared. To be honest, I thought it was going to be better than it was. I think I had seen snippets from other performances Kanye has done this year and thought I was getting a huge spectacular, which it wasn’t. I was also surprised to see that the top section of Acer Arena was not used. (unlike Stevie Wonder, oops forgot to blog about that). When he did his old stuff, it was great, there are many great tracks (Heard ‘Em Say, Gold Digger, Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Jesus Walks, Flashing Lights, the one with Chris Martin from Coldplay). When he did his well know stuff everyone had their hands in the air! The young Asians in front were screaming and videoing everything, the posse of boys behind were dancing and whooping! For me, the best songs were Through the Wire, Touch the Sky, Stronger and Good Life. When he did his new stuff from 808s and Heartbreak he started to waffle on (in auto tune) in the middle of the songs, there was a part where he was talking about Britney and why people were hammering him for not sticking to rapping. Well, I think he should stick with rapping, producing records and not singing. Kanye, you’re no Marvin Gaye or even Lionel Richie (though the hair is coming close). Overall I had a good time seeing Kanye in concert but was disappointed that he didn’t actually glow in the dark!